ADG Episode 36 - Tank Wars

[@sidaytona]

I'm playing this right now. Best time killer ever.

[@Maggerama]

Hands down, best multiplayer experience of its time.

[@lsb2623]

I LOVED this as a teen back in mid 90s. SO GOOD!!!

[@redrum0127]

my dad was a physics teacher back in the 90s and we played this endlessly. great memories.

[@Shawn4168]

Shareware was a popular PC software distribution model in the 80s and 90s. It was software that was usually free or extremely cheap to obtain, but it was either a limited time trial or had a restricted amount of content. The software could be freely "shared" among friends, but you would have to send payment to the publisher to unlock the full product. Wolfenstein 3D was a good example of shareware. There were three episodes total, and the first episode was freely available to everybody.

[@Раковийсупець]

jeez that's the funniest game we played in the kids gatherings in my childhood...

[@zzasdfwas]

Howitzer was a good clone, bringing SVGA graphics and some really interesting types of shields.

[@jacobthesitton9142]

There's Worms 3D which is a 3D artillery game.

[@Galova]

Love this game

[@trashkassett]

Loved this game! PC Speaker sounds awesome. 5 Mega Nuke FTW

[@thrik]

does anyone have any advice with getting the background to animate? I can't get it to work 😞

[@Pixelmusement]

If memory serves the setup program for this game has various methods you can choose from for doing the palette cycling. Beyond that, I think if the computer you're using is too fast (or your emulation is set too fast) it can also cause issues with the effect.

[@thrik]

@@Pixelmusement thank you for responding 🙂I love this game. I was trying to mess with the palette cycling in the setup program but couldn't find anything to work so far. I will keep on looking though

[@thrik]

@@Pixelmusement o wow I just found it! I had to go to palette options and select "timer interrupt" instead of "video retrace interrupt" 😄 before I was just trying to set the palette speed

[@fuxbox]

Omg memories

[@tripios]

omg memories 90s best decade

[@Darkstar2342]

There was definitely also a 2.0 version and (I think) some even older version (1.something). I remember playing them extensively, and then suddenly later when I upgraded to 3.0, everything sounded and looked different :)

[@Pixelmusement]

The game used to be called "Bomb" which is also why the executable has that name. If you want to find older versions, that's what you've gotta search for. :B

[@psychoticgiraffe]

i remember having an online play version of this game, what was it called?

[@Pixelmusement]

I'm not aware of such a thing which plays just like this game, though would not be surprised if it exists as there's been lots of online-capable modern artillery games. Even Scorched Earth technically has such a sequel in 3D and everything. :B

[@1800JimmyG]

pocket tanks?

[@jacob_swaggerz]

This per-dated scorched earth?!??!? THAT SET THE BENCHMARK FOR ARTILLERY GAMES FOR ME!!!

[@Pixelmusement]

+Jacob Siwers Yeah... Scorched Earth may've been more popular and more feature filled, but it was definitely borrowing some of its gameplay elements from Tank Wars. ;)

[@Galova]

To me this is the best game. When I tried scorched earth for the first time I have decided that it's just a boring clone of the tank wars, because there is something very special about original game

[@dhoffnun]

Well. I learned something today. I did think Scorched Earth was the original. How about that... I couldn't play enough of S.E. - and that will probably be the first game I get for DOSbox.

[@marccaselle8108]

When I first discovered DOSBOX decades ago , scorched earth was the first game I played with it

[@johjoh4571]

Oh, I see. But how in the world could they limit the amount of time back then?

[@nissimtrifonov5314]

Ah yes, the famous WinRAR business model...

[@thejobe100]

they had this game on every PC in middle school back then.

[@Pixelmusement]

+thejobe100 Which sucks for me because I lived in cities which didn't have middle schools. Elementary was Grades 1 through 8 and our computer labs only had "educational" games. :P

[@thejobe100]

i had at least 90% of the games you posted on here. my father was a PC dealer back in the 80/90s and he use to get microsoft dealer packages and some of these game would come packaged as deals for buying a copy of Windows 3.1 to 98.

[@cyrus649]

I remember playing a game similar to this but simpler version. Was it the earlier version?

[@philbiker3]

Yes - there was an older version than the one shown here.

[@cyrus649]

@@philbiker3 still trying to find it

[@johjoh4571]

What is shareware?

[@MechagirlSachiko]

Shareware is the name people gave to demos in the olden days of computer applications. Shareware titles could be shared around, but often had limited functionality when compared to the full release, or were usable only for a limited time, or both.

[@mcFreaki]

in my experience, there's only really 1 good 3d artillery game- it's called Hogs of War

[@Maggerama]

It was a great game, very underrated.

[@mcFreaki]

@@Maggerama y'know i made that comment 6 years ago. i was 22, and a very, very different person back then. i still stand by that comment though. it's rare for me to stand by comments this old, but this is one.

[@Maggerama]

@@mcFreaki Well, necro is the whole shtick here if you think of it, lol.

[@panutalus]

I always prefer Tank wars v2.5 because it works so smooth (targeted for 8-12Mhz 286 computer). The newer version, v3.2 seems to be optimized for faster 386/486 computers because unlike v2.5, it has adjustable parameter for computer timing. However when I play v3.2 I always get feelings that it doesn't run as smooth no matter how much I try to adjust the timing speed but that's only because when you're used to v2.5 for longer time. Particulary the explosions should be slow and "spectacular" which doesn't look that good if it's too fast. In this video it seems that the cycles were a bit too fast.

[@Pixelmusement]

+Panu Talus I time things out to my own personal taste. You can absolutely run older versions or slower cycles counts if you prefer! :)

[@panutalus]

@@Pixelmusement Well, don't mind me. I'm spoiled owning real hardware so I'm able to spot the emulation aspects and artifacts.